Android, Samsung still number 1 for smartphones

Apple comes in second but sees improvements

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Samsung holds onto top ranking along with Android OS

Android's mobile market share continues to rise, and is bringing Samsung's smartphones along for the ride.

The latest report from ComScore shows that Google's mobile OS, Android, is retaining its lead with 50.9 percent of the market as of this May. That marks a 0.8 percent increase over last February when the survey was last conducted.

Samsung is also still on top for smartphone manufacturers with 25.7 percent of the market, a 0.1 percent increase from February.

A strong lead on the competition

Apple, meanwhile, has made some significant gains since February, up 1.7 percent for mobile platforms and 1.5 percent as an OEM.

Even with those increases Apple trails behind, with a second place rank and 31.9 percent among platform holders.

RIM ranks third with 11.4 percent followed by Microsoft's Windows Phones at 4 percent and Symbian only making up 1.1 percent of the market.

As for manufacturing, LG squeaked into second place with 19.1 percent of smartphones. Apple's gains give it a 15 percent market share in third place, followed by Motorola with 12 percent and HTC with 6.1 percent.

Aside from Samsung and Google, only Apple and Microsoft saw improvements from February to May, with the competition seeing decreases up to -2 percent in the case of RIM.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft are all on the verge of major updates with iOS 6, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and Windows 8.

It will be interesting to watch how a fresh OS will impact their respective market shares, and whether it will help OEMs break free of the downward trend in hardware.